"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall
possess the highest seats in government, our country will
stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."
-- Samuel Adams
"fascism - A system of government that exercises a
dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the
merging of state and business leadership, together with
belligerent nationalism."
-- The American Heritage Dictionary, 1983
"The Greatest Enemy Of Knowledge Is Not Ignorance...
...It Is The Illusion Of Knowledge"
-- Stephen Hawking
"The penalty good men suffer for not getting involved in public
affairs is being ruled by evil men."
-- Plato
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
-- George Santayana (1863–1952), U.S. philosopher, poet.
"The worst forms of tyranny, or certainly the most successful
ones, are not those we rail against but those that so insinuate
themselves into the imagery of our consciousness, and the fabric
of our lives, as not to be perceived as tyranny."
-– Michael Parenti
"A tyrant's best ally has always been an apathetic populace.
Citizens of Germany learned that awful truth in 1939."
-- Doug Thompson
"The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open
society; and we are as a people inherently and historically
opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret
proceedings.
"We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and
unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the
dangers which are cited to justify it."
-- John F. Kennedy
"Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up
plowing for those who didn't."
-- Ben Franklin

This bill is completely insane. It literally allows the government to define any and all crimes including thought crime
as violent radicalization and homegrown terrorism. Obviously, this legislation is unconstitutional on a number of levels
and it is clear that all 404 representatives who voted in favor of this bill are traitors and should be removed from
office immediately. The treason spans both political parties and it shows us all that there is no difference between
them. The bill will go on to the Senate and will likely be passed and signed into the law by George W. Bush. Considering
that draconian legislation like the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act have already been passed, there seems
little question that this one will get passed as well. This is more proof that our country has been completely sold out
by a group of traitors at all levels of government.

"The legislation signed by the President today violates basic principles and values of our constitutional system of
government. It allows the government to seize individuals on American soil and detain them indefinitely with no
opportunity to challenge their detention in court. And the new law would permit an individual to be convicted on the
basis of coerced testimony and even allow someone convicted under these rules to be put to death.
The checks and balances of our system of government and the fundamental fairness of the American people and legal system
are among our greatest strengths in the fight against terrorism. I am deeply disappointed that Congress enacted this
law. We will look back on this day as a stain on our nations history."
-- Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wi)

The Military Commissions Act, Repeal of Posse Comitatus and Revision of the 1807 Insurrection Act

On October 17, 2006 George Bush took another step toward ending constitutional rule by signing into law two more
repressive acts making that day one that will live in even greater infamy than the earlier one on December 7 we're never
allowed to forget. He signed into law the Military Commissions Act, known as the "torture authorization act," that does
far more damage than that. With little public awareness of what happened in a White House signing ceremony, this act
alone ends constitutional and Bill of Rights protections allowing the chief executive the extraordinary right to
designate anyone an enemy of the state on his say alone based on no evidence beyond his word that's now the law of the
land. It means anyone can be charged with "terrorism" for what Orwell called a "thoughtcrime" making us all "enemy
combatants, unsafe from the reach of "Big Brother" residing in the White House with the power of life and death over
everyone everywhere in the world.

This new law allows the chief executive the right to order anyone arrested, interrogated, tortured and incarcerated in a
secret prison anywhere in the world, subject to the justice of a harsh military tribunal with no competent counsel or
right of appeal. It goes even further annulling the habeas rights of "everyone" including innocent US citizens falsely
accused of terrorism, charged under this law and prosecuted under its provisions as harshly as a verifiable bomb-thrower
caught in the act.

October 17 was doubly heinous as George Bush also quietly and privately signed into law a revision to the 1807
Insurrection Act. It was hidden in Sections 1076 and 333 of the John Warner Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year
2007. Two hundred years of tradition along with the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act prohibit using federal and National Guard
troops for law enforcement inside the country except as allowed by the Constitution or authorized by Congress in times
of a national emergency like an insurrection. Under the new law, the chief executive can claim a public emergency,
effectively declare martial law and send federal and National Guard troops to the nation's streets to suppress whatever
he calls public disorder that may include peaceful demonstrations against wars of aggression and rightful demands for
restoration of our constitutional rights now abandoned.

The new law authorizes a direct role for the Pentagon including use and transfer of state-of-the-art crowd control
weapons and technology to state and local responders. It's intended to militarize them and blur the distinction between
those from the Pentagon and local law enforcement agencies - very ominous and clear police state tactical readiness only
needing a trigger, sure to come, to make them operational.

Breaking News:
In a stealth maneuver,
President Bush has signed into law a provision
which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy
(D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the
Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The
Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to
enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush
has neutered those prohibitions.

Public Law 109-364, or the
"John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007" (H.R.5122) (2), which was signed by the
commander in chief on October 17th, 2006, in a private Oval Office ceremony, allows the President to declare a "public
emergency" and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units, which have always
been under the purview of the state governors, without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to
"suppress public disorder."

"Section 1076 of the massive Authorization Act, which grants the Pentagon another $500-plus-billion for its ill-advised
adventures, is entitled, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." Section 333, "Major public emergencies;
interference with State and Federal law" states that "the President may employ the armed forces, including the National
Guard in Federal service, to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States when, as a result of a
natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition
in any State or possession of the United States, the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to such an
extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of ("refuse" or "fail" in) maintaining
public order, "in order to suppress, in any State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or
conspiracy."

Bush now has absolute power over all armed troops within the country, a state of affairs which the constitution purposely
tried to prevent. The administration’s dream of militarizing the country under the sole authority of the executive has now
been achieved although the public still has no idea that a coup that has taken place. Prison planet is not coming, it is Now setup and Here.

It PASSED the House, Senate and was signed. Now anyone (even Americans) for any reason can be labeled a combatant, hauled away
and never seen again. It abolishes Habeas corpus, due process, and the presumption of innocence. It is not just "alien combatants,"
it includes anyone they so designate. No more 4th amendment rights which automatically removes all other rights when you are incarcerated.
Speak out too boldly against the many usurpations upon this great land and our inherent and god given liberties and you too can be labeled.

The "Military Commissions Act of 2006" will repeal the central tenets of the U.S. Constitution which require the state to charge a man
with a crime before putting him in jail, as well as the 8th amendments prohibition of “cruel and inhuman” punishment. The law will
allow Bush to imprison anyone he chooses and abuse them as he sees fit. It places Bush above the law, our first American monarch.

This act lists one of the definitions of an unlawful enemy combatant as, quote, "a person who, before, on, or after the date of the
enactment of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a combatant status review
tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the president or the secretary of defense."

That means anyone on Mr. Bush or Mr. Rumsfeld's say so. The Founding Fathers are turning in their graves. Indeed, gaining our independence from
British empire and the very founding of this country were instantiated for less reason.

"The power of the executive to cast a man into prison without
formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to
deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree
odious, and the foundation of all totalitarian government
whether Nazi or Communist." -- Winston Churchill

Another provision of the law states that once a person is detained, “no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction
to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever ... relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a
military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions.”

That court-stripping provision – barring “any claim or cause of action whatsoever” – would seem to deny American
citizens habeas corpus rights just as it does for non-citizens. If a person can’t file a motion with a court, he can’t
assert any constitutional rights, including habeas corpus.

Other constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights – such as a speedy trial, the right to reasonable bail and the
ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” – appear to be beyond an American detainee’s reach as well.

We knew something was coming since the recent Supreme court decisions that ruled against Bush and Rumsfeld in regards to
torture.
They had nothing left to lose because they are already guilty of violating the Geneva conventions, and our own laws, against cruel
and unusual punishment thus to stay out of jail they needed this "get out of jail free" retroactive law. It is not legal nor
constitutional but they just did it.

Habeas corpus is a fundamental recognition that in America, the government does not have the power to detain people indefinitely
and arbitrarily. And that in America, the courts must have the power to review the legality of executive detention decisions.

Habeas corpus is a longstanding vital part of our American tradition, and is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
As a group of retired judges wrote to Congress, habeas corpus "safeguards the most hallowed judicial role in our constitutional
democracy--ensuring that no man is imprisoned unlawfully."

The bill allows U.S. citizens to be targeted as terrorists, kidnapped and stripped of all legal rights guaranteed under the
U.S. Constitution. Top legal scholars have expressed their shock at the scope of the so-called "compromise" legislation.
To top it off, the media touted it as a 'defeat' for bush. How Orwellian..

Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman states in the L.A. Times,
"The compromise legislation....authorizes the president to seize American citizens as enemy combatants, even if they have never
left the United States. And once thrown into military prison, they cannot expect a trial by their peers or any other of the normal
protections of the Bill of Rights."

Similarly, law Professor Marty Lederman explains
: "this [subsection (ii) of the definition of 'unlawful enemy combatant'] means that if the Pentagon says you're an unlawful enemy
combatant -- using whatever criteria they wish -- then as far as Congress, and U.S. law, is concerned, you are one, whether or not
you have had any connection to 'hostilities' at all."

As reported on Friday, the bill also contains a definition of "wrongfully
aiding the enemy" which labels all American citizens who breach their "allegiance" to President Bush and the actions of his government
as terrorists subject to possible arrest, torture and conviction in front of a military tribunal.

Month after month, year after year, we've watched with fascinated horror as George W. Bush revives the ancient tools of
tyranny. Aggressive war, torture, secret prisons, arbitrary detention, death squads, mass surveillance, contempt for
law, elitist corruption, deification of the leader, co-option of religion to serve state power, rule by executive fiat:
It's like watching a ghastly pantomime of imperial Rome or some feudal state, rigged up in modern dress.

The fact that freedom in America was officially buried last Thursday was swiftly knocked off the top of the news cycle by more school
shootings, more mindless celebrity gossip, and a morbid fascination with the perverted ramblings of Republican Congressman Mark Foley.
This should be on the top of all news media instead of just 2 newspapers and no major TV news; what better example of the corporate controlled
MSM news and their lack of regard for the public rather their respect for mammon. Additionally all this has conveniently covered up
the fact that there is a Carrier Group of ships headed for the Persian Gulf apparently in preparation for a strike on Iran.

With HR 6166, Congress has voted to take away the Constitutional rights of foreigners... and anyone else that a secret committee declares an enemy of the United States. Will you wait to speak out until you are denounced by the committee?
Another step forward in the War on Terror, eliminating America's freedoms, so the terrorists can't take them away.

VOTE Them Out! Anyone that voted in favor of these two bills has to go!

This administration has engaged in a conscious policy of lies and deception designed to fool the American
people into supporting their wars. They stoked the people's fears and manipulated us in the most
cynical ways. These wars have left much of the Middle East a smoking ruin and have caused the deaths
of thousands of innocent people. In the process, the neocons have run our nation to the brink of
bankruptcy and have soiled our reputation before the rest of the world. And if that were not enough,
they have exploited the situation to enrich themselves and to gut the Constitution with a myriad of
shady policies and programs -- NSA email monitoring, extra-judicial wiretaps, torture, renditions and now
this final nail in the coffin destroying hundreds of years of precedent and the very foundation of our republic.

"We have lived as if in a trance. We have lived as people in fear. And now – our rights and our freedoms in peril – we
slowly awake to learn that we have been afraid of the wrong thing. Therefore, tonight, we have become the true inheritors
of our American legacy. For, on this first full day that the Military Commissions Act is in force, we now face what our
ancestors faced, at other times of exaggerated crisis and melodramatic fear-mongering: A government more dangerous to our
liberty, than is the enemy it claims to protect us from."
-- Keith Olbermann